Against All Odds
by lessxordinary
Summary: Sadako's life was perfect. Young, beautiful, brilliant. Nothing the matter. When a close friend is killed by the mafia, she investigates, and finds L working on the case. Together, they try to defeat Edgar Shapiro. Slight LxOC


There were many things in the world that could annoy Sadako. She wasn't really all that easy-going, and she didn't pretend to be. She knew her limits, respected them, and pushed them as much as she could. The broken air-conditioner in her house, the old men who honked and whistled as she drove past, and the dirty streets of Chicago, Illinois. The way the huge city seemed to loom above her, the homeless people she kept passing. But everything was lost to her.

Everything was lost in the falls of her footstep, the loud pop music blaring through her headphones, the gentle rise and fall of her breath. Sadako was running. The young woman wasn't running from anything, or for any reason other than the sheer pleasure of it. And that she was convinced she could use to lose a few pounds, though a hundred pounds at 5'2 was rather underweight. The young woman smiled to herself, the hot breeze of summer in the city moving against her bare, sweaty midriff.

The girl continued down the streets, wiping off the sweat that had gathered on her forehead. Her dark brown, nearly black, hair was pulled into a high pony-tail, which helped keep her cool. A familiar apartment building broke the horizon as she ran, and she smiled. Home. She jogged up the front stairs, waving at crazy Mrs. Gordie who lived in the building next door. Sadako ran up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. Then, just for good measure, she ran back down and up again three more times.

Finally, sweaty but content, Sadako moved into her apartment building. As she grabbed a sip of water from the water bottle at her hip and began to unlace her sneakers, she looked around her small apartment. It was nothing impressive, really. It was quite a mess: Clothes and papers and books and all sorts of odds and ends strewn about. She smiled at the chaos of her room. It was exactly how she'd left it. She stretched quickly, then let her hair fall down around her shoulders. It just barely brushed her shoulder blades, and it was stick straight. She blamed her Japanese mother.

She moved over to her big screen TV, which was right across from her messy, cluttered bed. She popped open the DVD player that rested on top of the TV, and slid the CD from her walkman into the player. As the female-group's loud, flirtatious tunes flooded the small room, Sadako quickly began peeling off the soaked tank-top. She disappeared into the bathroom, not even bothering to close the door. It was her apartment, after all.

A few minutes later, the young woman danced out of the shower, an orange towel the only thing covering her frame. She rifled through the drawers of her dresser, pulling on a bra and underwear. Then, only in her undergarments, she proceeded to brush her teeth, and moved over to her phone, checking the answering machine for messages. Ah, nothing important. CIA, the boss of that one company... what was it, he said? Cingular? She didn't know. No one she liked, or wanted to talk to.

She wasn't going to be for hire for quite awhile, she knew. Her check had just come in for that job with the Thai ambassador, and she would be set for the next few months. That was how she lived, from pay-check to pay-check. Because Sadako was too random to stick to one job, really. The young woman moved through her apartment hurriedly, nearly tripping over a pile of unopened FedEx packages. She paused in front of the mirror, scanning her own frame.

Brilliant hazel eyes laughed back at her. She moved her eyes down her body. She had to admit, there wasn't much there to improve. She had a god-given body, she would ever so humbly state. Her mother, a wonderful Japanese woman named Fuyuka, had given her the stature, the fine bones, the ever so slightly pointed eyes, and, of course, her straight hair. Her father's side, however, was purely American. Some German, some English, and some other countries, such as Norway and Hungary. From him, she had gotten her curves and her remarkable eyes.

She had a curvy figure, with very little fat, but the fat she did have was in all the right places. She was the kind of girl that others loved to hate. Well, it wasn't like she didn't work for it. Her morning jogs showed that. Sadako enjoyed being physical. Running, kick-boxing, jumping rope... anything that got her muscles moving. This, she assumed, balanced out with her diet. Sadako could eat anything, and not gain a pound. Or... she could stop eating for nearly a week, simply because she forgot to grab anything. Luck of the draw, she assumed.

The half-Japanese, half-American girl moved to her closet. She pulled out a flirty, ruffled brown skirt and low-cut pink top. She shimmied into her clothes, quickly pulling her hair into a half pony tail. She glanced up to the clock. Late already. Sadako rolled her eyes. Why was she never, ever on time? What curse had fate laid upon her that she absolutely, without fail, couldn't arrive on time? She swore, she would be late to her own _funeral_, by some cruel trick of nature.

Since she'd gotten her money, she'd decided to take out one of her close friends, Charlotte, to a spa, her treat. Charlotte, a girl who'd grown up in the slums, rarely got to do anything that was that 'ritzy', as she'd described it. Sadako was only too happy to find an excuse to pamper the twenty-two-year-old woman. She sorted through her make-up, quickly brushing on some eye-shadow, mascara, and lip-gloss before darting out the door. That was when she remembered that Richard was supposed to come over. She swore mentally, though she continued to her car.

The sleek orange vehicle was Sadako's baby, the first important thing she'd bought with her own money. That was when she'd graduated college, at sixteen years old. Oh yes, along with her stunning good looks and skill, did I mention she was a genius? Her parents, both remarkable themselves, had given her and her brother Richard their amazing mind. Rich had never done as much as Sadako, but then again, maybe he'd done more.

She slid into the car, the warm sun beating down on her as she started it and moved down the street. She pulled out her cell phone and quickly speed-dialed Rich.

"Hey, Richy-Martin. What's up?" "Not much, chicky-babe. How you been?" "Well, pretty good." She repllied. "Except, hey, Rich... Your girlfriend over?" She asked, pausing, hearing a soft feminine laugh in the background. Rich's laugh returned over the phone. "Yeah, Abby came over. She was just about to leave so I could head over to your house..." Sadako smiled into her phone. "Well, hey, don't cancel your plans. I promised I'd do something with Charlotte today... I totally blanked out on it." "Oh, that's okay. We can always hang out some other time. You know how much I love hanging out with my little sister." If he'd been there, he would have ruffled her hair, she just knew it. "I'm really sorry. Some other time, okay?" "Yeah, sure." "Alright. Bye, Rich!" "Bye, Sadako-chan."

Her elder brother loved teasing her, especially about her Japanese first name, but the two really couldn't have been closer. Growing up, their parents hadn't been around much, far too busy with their jobs to deal with their kids. So Richard had become one of the most important people in the nineteen-year-old girl's life. Now, though... well, he worried her, sometimes. He was a great guy, with a heart of gold. But Rich was even smarter than her, she knew.

She also knew that Rich was getting into illegal stuff. Smuggling, counterfeiting. She just prayed he'd be careful, and not let too much get out about him or his whereabouts. She understood, though, and didn't have the heart to stop him. It was how he escaped it: The confines of an overly brilliant mind. Sadako suffered from the same malady, though she found outlets for it in detective work, body-guarding, and, every so often, police work. Not everything she did was entirely legal herself, but she let her heart be her guide. If something didn't sit right with her, she'd turn it down. That's how it had always been.

Her car pulled up to the spa, slowly coming to a stop outside. She checked her face in the mirror, and her bright hazel eyes, with their slightly green outer-rim and nearly orange center just around the black of her pupil, looked back. Her pouty lips needed more gloss, which she remedied. Content with her looks, she exited the car. So she was vain. She would admit that. She didn't see anything wrong with being confident if you knew you were beautiful, right? Right.

Wiry arms found their way around her waist. It was Charlotte, as expected. The young woman wore a tight t-shirt over her twiggy body, and tight blue-jeans. Too much make-up, as usual, which made her look so much older then she was. Sadako smiled, hugging Charlotte with gentle enthusiasm. As if Rich wasn't enough, she also knew what Charlotte was doing behind her back. Charlotte, the girl she'd known since she was five years old, was whoring herself. Sadako didn't look into it, but she knew that the young woman was selling herself to anyone from CEO's to common drug dealers. Sadako just didn't want to invade her privacy like that.

Oh well. That was for another day. Charlotte was older, supposedly wiser. Sadako brushed off the slight feeling of dread that momentarily clenched around her overly sensitive heart, and the two girls walked into the spa.

* * *

This is sort of kind of on request, sort of kind of out of my own head. This is a new plot of mine, involving my character, Sadako. L's not in this chapter, I know. But he will be. This is more like the introduction, really, so you can get a feel for Sadako. This story is going to have chapters, I have no idea how many. I also plan to, if my procrastinating self and I can ever get around to it, write a sequel story. Keep in mind, this is not co-current to the Kira case. This is about four years earlier, which would make L about twenty-one, I believe. The plot is mine, but some of the lines I am going to use are quotes from a roleplay I'm doing with my friend Hat-San.

V


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